Improving Delivery Behaviors During Exposure for Pediatric OCD: A Multiple Baseline Training Trial With Community Therapists

This study tested whether a new training tool, the Exposure Guide (EG), improved in-session therapist behaviors (i.e., indicators of quality) that have been associated with youth outcomes in prior clinical trials of exposure therapy. Six therapists at a community mental health agency (CMHA) provided exposure therapy for 8 youth with obsessive–compulsive disorder (OCD). Using a nonconcurrent multiple baseline design with random assignment to baseline lengths of 6 to 16 weeks, therapists received gold-standard exposure therapy training with weekly consultation (baseline phase) followed by addition of EG training and feedback (intervention phase). The primary outcome was therapist behavior during in-session exposures, observed weekly using a validated coding system. Therapist behavior was evaluated in relation to a priori benchmarks derived from clinical trials. Additional outcomes included training feasibility/acceptability, therapist response to case vignettes and beliefs about exposure, and independent evaluator-rated clinical outcomes. Three therapists reached behavior benchmarks only during the EG (intervention) phase. Two therapists met benchmarks during the baseline phase; one of these subsequently moved away from benchmarks but met them again after starting the EG phase. Across all therapists, the percentage of weeks meeting benchmarks was significantly higher during the EG phase (86.4%) vs. the baseline phase (53.2%). Youth participants experienced significant improvement in OCD symptoms and global illness severity from pre- to posttreatment. Results provide initial evidence that adding the EG to gold-standard training can change in-session therapist behaviors in a CMHA setting.     

Animate being: an inquiry into Being in Heidegger’s Being and Time

Continental Philosophy Review - This paper questions the ontological integrity of Dasein as Heidegger specifies Being in Being and Time. It does so with reference to the real-life, real-time...     

Culture and beliefs about time: comparisons among black Americans, black Africans, and white Americans

The authors investigated the extent to which racial factors, cultural factors, or both influence a person's beliefs about physical time, personal time, and experienced and remembered duration. A total of 750 Black American, Black African, and White American students responded to a questionnaire on these beliefs about time. Factor analysis was used to compare belief structures. Pairwise comparisons, performed separately for each statement, tested the direction and strength of the reported beliefs. The groups showed many similarities, but they also showed some differences. All 3 groups differed in beliefs about physical and personal time, but they did not differ in beliefs about duration experiences. This evidence does not support simplistic views of racial or cultural influences. Culture may differentially influence beliefs about physical time and personal time. Beliefs about duration experiences may represent an ethnic factor that transcends cultures.     

The effects of goal progress cues: An implicit theory perspective

Consumers often encounter goods and services that provide cues to mark their progress. We define the term “goal progress cues” to reflect the diverse category of cues that highlight progress towards a goal. Across a series of three studies, we show that entity theorists, who rely on cues that highlight completion in order to signal their abilities to others, evaluate tasks that include these cues more favorably than those that lack these features. In contrast, incremental theorists, who focus on improving competence, are impacted only by progress cues that highlight learning. We demonstrate these findings across a variety of goal pursuit contexts that represent a mix of customer-centric (retail queues), service-oriented managerial (sales calls), and personal achievement consumer product (mazes) domains using both behavioral and self-reported measures. We conclude with a discussion about the theoretical and substantive implications of our findings.     

Like Mike: Ability contagion through touched objects increases confidence and improves performance

Magical thinking refers to irrational peculiar beliefs, including those that conform to the laws of contagion. We propose that touching an object that was previously touched by a high performer increases confidence via magical thinking (ability contagion) and improves actual performance among individuals high in experiential processing. A series of studies provides support for this main proposition. Our results cast doubt on an alternative explanation based on priming, and are obtained controlling for participants’ level of rational processing, motivation, and affect.     

The death of a mind: a study of Shakespeare's Richard III

Some of the most difficult aspects of our work involve our encounters with states of mind which are steeped in and spread violence. In these circumstances, we experience our best efforts to offer empathic presence and thought to avoid being assaulted and obliterated. In these instances, a figure from literature depicting the details in question may come to our aid. In the play popularly known as Richard III,William Shakespeare depicts how the state of mind which is etched by grievance and committed to revenge may impose the 'winter of (its) discontent' upon the sunny dispositions of others' healthy, integrated functioning. Shakespeare masterfully depicts Richard's cunning and malice, but he also illustrates how this vengeful state uses guile and 'changes of shape' to seduce its way past protective boundaries, utilizing the human qualities of trust, open-heartedness and longing as pathways for invasion, betrayal and emotional devastation. This paper will view excerpts of the play's text from a psychoanalytic perspective which suggests that several clear lessons about this obliterative state of mind may be gleaned: that grievance can only operate to spread grievance and destruction; that our open-hearted and trusting qualities do make us vulnerable to such invasion and betrayal, but that our humanity is also the only avenue for rescue from this plight. In addition a clear lesson is offered about the value of protected 'sanctuary', that is, mental space where our most potent tool in these circumstances, our discerning minds, might find residence.